


Fate’s Wide Wheel

by argyle4eva



Series: Flies and Pigeons [3]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Emotions, Eventual Romance, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Other, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23481529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argyle4eva/pseuds/argyle4eva
Summary: Gabriel and Beelzebub end up sharing a mission . . . and a bit more.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Flies and Pigeons [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624090
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Fate’s Wide Wheel

**Author's Note:**

> Annnnd this is where Ineffable Bureaucracy takes a turn into Genuinely Real Ship territory, and hits some different notes than I’d ever expected (no pun intended). I had the idea back during the Ineffable Valentines challenge, for the prompt “Serenade/Love Song,” but realized I’d already pushed the rules by incorporating some Ineffable Bureaucracy into an Ineffable Husbands fic challenge at all, so I went with my second plotbunny, which became [“Burning Through the Skies.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641034) I still wrote up my first idea, and it’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I’d release this snippet into the wild.
> 
> This fic jumps ahead a bit in Gabriel and Beelzebub’s relationship development, to the point where Things are starting to become obvious to the principals, even if they aren’t sure how to deal with them yet. Since I haven’t yet posted the fics IP showing how they get here, it’s worth commenting that Beelzebub doesn’t get a whole lot of characterization in the TV series (even less in the book), but this ship works best if ze’s one of those demons who believes in doing their job, but doesn’t necessarily like it very much. Gabriel, on the other hand, was happy being an angel in Heaven, but finds it’s a lot different on Earth, and realizes that, maybe, he doesn’t like his job very much, either.

“You’re tired,” the demon in the alleyway told the man with a gun in his pocket. “You need to sleep.”

“Yes,” the man agreed, voice thick and dazed.

“In fact you’re going to go find someplace and sleep for the next - “ a quick glance at a phone “- six hours. You’ll have great dreams. So great, nothing will be able to wake you up early.”

The man swayed, half-ready to fall over where he stood. He nodded, possibly in agreement, possibly just trying to keep his head upright.

“Get out of here.” The demon waved a hand, and the man with a gun stumbled, and wandered back into the depths of the alley like a drunk.

The demon cocked zir head, and turned to look at the rather large angel who had just appeared at zir right shoulder. Gabriel was getting better with misdirections and silence, Beelzebub reflected. Finally ditched that embarrassing “Lookit ME! I’m a MeSsENgER!” aura. Took long enough.

“Was that the stalker?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah, but not any more. He’s down for the count.”

“Where’s he going?”

“Somewhere. Not my problem, so long as he’s out of the way. How’s the wiring?”

“A disaster. I’ve miracled it so there won’t be a fire _tonight_ , but they really need to get someone in there to work on it.”

“Tell them Monday. Better yet, turn a building inspector loose on them if you’re feeling really angelic. We have other things to do tonight.” Beelzebub turned on zir heel, and Gabriel followed.

___

For once, work was bringing them together with the same objective: a concert that had to happen.

Beelzebub’s interest was in the performer: a rising star in the rock scene with the voice of an (ahem) angel, and a personality that didn’t match. Given her almost violently self-destructive drug use, and a fair bit of dodgy financial and criminal activity supporting said drug use, it was a classic case of tragically hell-bound talent. The final tipping point was to be death – essentially suicide – by overdose in the very near future.

Gabriel’s interest was in the audience – two people, specifically, who would meet and fall in love at this event, and this event only. Why Heaven cared so much about _these_ two people in particular was information above Gabriel’s pay grade, but his orders were clear: the concert must happen, without interruption.

As it turned out, making sure everything worked the way it was supposed to was an uphill battle; it was almost as if the Universe itself was trying to sabotage things. Between a stalker with an 83% chance of successfully assassinating the star before she could perform (thus ending her life before she was well and truly earmarked as one of Hell’s own) and horrifically unsafe electrical wiring at the concert venue that was primed to cause a fire during the event, thus throwing everything into chaos (93% likely), along with an array of lesser stumbling blocks, the emissaries of Heaven and Hell had been putting in a _lot_ of overtime.

Afterwards, the people involved in putting on the concert would speak, with varying degrees of anguish, how it had all seemed so _blessed_. Everything was perfect, from the equipment to the engineering, to the lighting and pyrotechnics. Crowd control and security, even the merch table (which sold hand-over-fist and yet somehow never quite ran out) – not a single thing went wrong. As if an angel had been there in secret, watching over it.

An angel _was_ there in secret, hustling to maintain order, but that wasn’t giving proper credit to the demon who was working just as hard – also on the side of order, for once, rather than chaos.

More than once, unbidden, Gabriel found himself thinking, _We make a good team at work, it’s too bad we’re on different Sides_ , but he was busy enough to never examine that impulse closely.

Finally, it was all done and the show was ready to start. Gabriel half-turned to leave, glancing at Beelzebub. Ze shook zir head. Ze was still amped up from all the running around they’d had to do, zir blue eyes wide, the red, glimmering hellspark buried in zir pupils burning more brightly than usual. “Are you kidding? After all that, I’m going to stay and watch the show. We earned it.”

Fair point.

Not even occult and etherial powers combined could get them actual seats, but they did find standing space along a wall, with a good view of the stage, where they might (if their misdirections happened to slip) be taken for security, ushers, or some other concert staff.

Gabriel was prepared to be bored, ready to sneer at this crude, quaint human attempt at music. He was even ready for the initial shock of _lights, pyrotechnics, music._

What he wasn’t prepared for was the sudden roar of pure, united _joy_ from the human audience. Joy, and Love – two emotions no angel could block, and which he’d never experienced at this volume before. He lived in a city, surrounded by millions, but their emotions were fragmented, easy to ignore as background noise. Here, in this concert hall, there were thousands all feeling the same things at the same time, and the effect was overwhelming.

Dazzled, his heart and mind cracked open unwillingly, Gabriel was unable to resist when the music reached deep into his chest and _pulled_. It had him, completely, and wouldn’t let him go.

More terrifyingly, once he could piece his thoughts together again, he didn’t want to be released.

This wasn’t Heaven’s music, this was human music: raw, fierce, mortal; aware of its own mortality but willing to sing in the face of darkness anyway. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced.

A break, and he realized he wasn’t breathing, so he resumed, for form’s sake – and that was when he became fully aware of the pressure against his left side, where a demon happened to be leaning on him. Just a small, pointy shoulder digging into his arm, nothing more intimate, not even anything unusual – they’d touched before, out of accident or necessity, and it hadn’t been noteworthy – but this was neither accidental nor necessary, and it stopped the breath in his throat. Again.

He should pull away, he knew it. Hell touching Heaven? Blasphemy. But, like the music, that contact latched onto something deep inside him and he couldn’t have resisted it if he tried. He felt the buzz of pent-up energy, heat, power – real Power, at a Prince of Hell’s level – tamped down into a physical form two sizes too small . . . and in all the Universe, that Power chose to be where it was, leaning against _him_ , without incinerating him. It was intoxicating, but the impact wasn’t purely metaphysical. The neurotransmitters and hormones in his human body were going absolutely insane at the same time, and all he could do was ride that terrible, wonderful wave.

 _Your arm, it would take so little to shift, to put it around zir, it’s being offered, you’re a fool not to . . ._ his body whispered, wiser in its way than his angelic soul, but he couldn’t move, didn’t dare to turn his head and even look. Was this a deliberate temptation, meant to compromise and destroy him? Or, even worse, was it something else?

The music started again, a soaring, perfect song of love, the audience roared with Love, and the weight against his side was as warm and steady as the first light that ever shone in the void. Gabriel closed his eyes in the most fervent prayer he’d ever made.

_Mother, I hear Your voice, but I don't understand what You're trying to tell me. Please, I –_

Then came the last chord, sustained briefly, and it was over. The audience continued to roar, but something had broken. Beelzebub straightened, an aching loss of pressure against Gabriel’s side, and said, using a small miracle to be heard, “That’s it. We should go before the crowd starts to leave.”

Gabriel scanned the audience, focusing his angelic faculties, and spotted his assigned couple. They had their arms around each other, sharing a passionate first kiss. For them, tonight would be a magical turning point which would define the rest of their lives together. “Yeah, there’s nothing more here. I’m done.”

An angel and a demon left the building silently, side by side, as unremarkable as a pair of shadows, taking their blessings with them.

Once they were clear, Beelzebub checked zir phone. “There’s now a 99.8% chance she’ll overdose in her hotel room later tonight. She’ll never sing again, and she’ll die one of ours.” Ze did not sound happy about it, only tired.

Gabriel understood. After the sensory and emotional wringer he’d just been through, everything seemed flat and colorless. His phone chimed at him, and he pulled it from his pocket. _Congratulations on a successful assignment._ He marked the message as read and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Should he be rejoicing over the proper punishment of a sinner? Gleeful that his job had been done properly? He would have felt that way, once. But now, all he saw were the contradictions, the arbitrariness, and everything washed into shades of grey.

An amazing gift, in a flawed human vessel. Heaven was happy to use that gift for their own ends, but quick to toss away the vessel once it was no longer useful. A sinner would die, and go to Hell . . . and a particular form of magic would be gone from Creation, never to shine again, never to touch the world with that unique love and joy he’d felt tonight, so many lives gone darker all at once. No chance of healing or redemption, just . . . waste and indifference. It was - and Gabriel struggled, but he could find no other answer - wrong, Unfair, unjust.

Disloyal.

Those who serve, deserve better than to be disposable.

Why had he never understood that before?

_We lived in the world, as part of it, and it changed us._

The words came unbidden from memory and he winced.

Ordinarily, this was the point where he and Beelzebub would announce themselves off the clock, and, more often than not, go unwind at his apartment with something mindless on Netflix, sharing wine, or gelato, or popcorn; shouting at the screen, insulting the show, trading barbs with each other. Tonight, that seemed hopelessly unattractive, small and petty and pointless.

“Walk you to your place?” he offered - the first time he’d ever said it, and he meant just that, nothing more. A random objective. Walk there, leave zir and just . . . keep walking. A cab would be faster, but he didn’t feel like being constrained by a human-made space. He needed open air, and motion provided by his own muscles and bones.

“No.” Ze hunched a bit more in zir coat, though zir strides continued to match Gabriel’s. “I don’t want to be inside.”

“Yeah.”

They kept walking in silence, aimlessly, until they reached a park bench overlooking the river. The Thames was flowing smoothly tonight, like black glass, full of reflected city lights and the pinpricks of the few stars visible through the ambient glow. They both stopped to watch the water. There was an air of something ancient and unbothered about it, larger than the human world, timeless.

“I think I’ll sit here,” Beelzebub said. _You do whatever you want,_ went unspoken.

Gabriel sat next to zir.

Ze slumped and watched the river, then, without otherwise moving, snapped zir fingers and pulled a bottle up out of thin air. Ze unscrewed the cap, took a swig, and offered it to Gabriel. He raised an eyebrow in question.

“It’s real,” ze said. One thing both of them agreed on was that miracled food and drink was absolutely terrible. “I conjured it from my flat.”

“Thanks,” Gabriel took it without checking the label, didn’t bother wiping the neck, and drank. He swallowed liquid fire and coughed in surprise. _Not_ wine this time. He passed it back and Beelzebub didn’t wipe the neck, either, before taking another swig.

Some time in the smallest, darkest hours, Beelzebub’s phone dinged, but ze didn’t bother checking it. No need. It would be a message saying, _Congratulations, job well done._

They sat together, eight inches of cold air between them, and passed the bottle back and forth until it was empty and the first light of dawn touched the horizon.

“Ugh.” Beelzebub stood and stretched, then absent-mindedly flung the bottle off into the shadowy depths of the park. It spun away with a hollow whistle.

“Hey,” Gabriel said, annoyed. “You know I have to go pick that up, on principle.”

“Sorry.” The bottle appeared back in zir hand, and ze handed to Gabriel. Somehow, after everything that happened, it was the oddest thing of all. A Prince of Hell offering an apology to an angel, as if it were nothing. _But is it nothing?_ He ignored that thought with great intensity.

“Thanks.” He stood and stretched in turn. “Oof. I think I’m going home and getting a few hours of rest.” _Home_ , when did that apartment become _home_? More things not to think about.

“Not me. Evil never sleeps.” It was a joke, but not. Beelzebub still sounded tired. “Back on the clock.”

“See you for coffee?” He didn’t like the way that came out - not casually, too much hope in it. But he couldn’t take it back.

“Sure. Later, loser.” Beelzebub turned on zir heel and strode off.

Gabriel watched them go. Prince Beelzebub, Lord of Flies and Lies, demonic terror whose name was spoken in whispers of fear.

A small, slim figure in black, still hunched in on zirself, walking alone with grim determination towards whatever evil needed doing next.

Gabriel concentrated on thinking absolutely nothing as he turned and walked in the opposite direction.

It didn’t work. It never did.

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent notes for a self-indulgent fanfic: The title, as you may know, refers to a song from the _Quantum Leap_ episode “Glitter Rock.” QL was my first real fandom, and the one that got me writing fic seriously. “GR” was the first episode I ever saw, so the song has a big place in my little fandom heart (FWIW, it’s still one of my personal themes for The Doctor, too, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic). 
> 
> While I was sketching out this fic, I realized I was riffing on the plot of “GR,” and that QL in general has a thematic resonance with angels (and demons) being out on assignment, as they often are in the GO universe (this resonance becomes explicit if one accepts the final episode of QL as canon, which I do not, fuck you very much Donald P. Bellisario, but that’s yet another screed). 
> 
> As a homage to QL, I added the citation of percentile probabilities to this story (no loyal Al needed in the age of smartphones and Head Offices), and “Fate’s Wide Wheel” turned into a big part of my writing soundtrack. The lyrics are QL-specific, and don’t cross over to GO the way they do to _Doctor Who_ , but the tone of longing and dislocation matches Gabriel’s emotions at this point, so . . . 
> 
> (If you’d like to hear the original, complete with video of Scott Bakula covered in, yes, glitter, go [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nngqZSIb5dQ) – he’s long been a fave actor of mine, and, damn, that man has a set of pipes on him when he gets to sing. Enjoy.)


End file.
